I remember a story from xh. We had been separated for over a year, but the divorce wasn't final yet because of custody issues. And he was working for his step-father, under the table, so he reported super low income levels to get out of paying child support.

One day he called me and said that his sister was heading over to my place to get my zoo membership card. Not even asking, just telling me that she would be there in about 15 min and needed the card. I, of course, said no. Mind you, we had been separated for over a year now, so my current membership would have been paid for entirely by me. Also, I wasn't even home at the moment. To top it off, members need to present their card and ID so that people don't just hand off their cards to other people to get them into the zoo for free. xh then told me that if I wasn't home, I would have to drive to the zoo (45min away), and give his sister my card and driver's license. Yeah, there's no way that was going to happen.

And your face presumably, unless your SIL could pass for you that plan was never going to work!

XSIL and I look nothing alike. She's a tall Irish redhead with curly hair, freckles, and fair skin. I'm a short Native American with straight, almost black hair and a darker skintone. Not to mention she has a lot more piercings than I. And tattoos, but those wouldn't show in the DL pic

Logged

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

I have another one from about a decade ago. A bit of backstory, my mother's second husband (who technically was my stepfather from the time I was 9 until 19 but he never really deserved the title) had something of a violent temper and was prone to irrational rage. So, naturally, they divorced (finally).

He had visitation rights with my sister once a week, and part of the agreement was that mom would pick her up afterwards. I went along because I wasn't working that evening, and due to his behavior on past visits mom had been advised not to pick her up alone--bring a witness. We got there about five minutes early so we waited in the minivan until it was precisely the time to pick her up, figuring that he'd just use that last five minutes to spend with his child. Ya know, like rational people would.

Nope--instead he came out raging, yelling about how we were infringing on his rights as a father, assorted insults and four-letter words, you name it. We had to roll the window up before he could reach in and hurt one of us, and he banged so hard on the window that I thought he'd break it. He storms back inside, but not before grabbing the antenna of the van and bending it to a 90-degree angle. We call the police.

He comes out a few moments later telling us that HE had called the police to report this "harassment". Mom calmly informed him that we had too, and he got a brief look on his face of realization that he might actually be in trouble, so he bent that antenna back. It's still damaged.

We finally got my sister and headed home, and got an estimate for fixing the antenna of the van. A week later we get a call from mom's ex-husband. To this day I remember that conversation.

Him: "Now, *mom's name*, I'm sorry things had to go the way they did, but I can take care of it. All you need to let me do is take the van-"Mom: "No. It's my van, in my name, what makes you think I'd take a vehicle that YOU damaged to take to be fixed?"Him: "I was TRYING to be nice and helpful about this, but if you're going to be such a c-word (he didn't use the edited version) about this then you can just forget about my help!".

She did eventually get a restraining order against him...which ended up being pointless since the one time he violated it, the cops refused to do anything about it.

Update on the black and white suggested dress code for homecoming dance with two weeks notice:

DD and I shopped a bit, but did not find a dress that was not too short (and since she is only 5'2'' you can imagine how short that would be on a taller girl!) so she decided to wear a dress she bought this summer with her grandmother. It was a beautiful rich color, and she definitely popped.

DS was talked out of going goth by a conservative friend who got a group together for a nice restaurant dinner.

The dance had black lights or something to make the whites glow, but it was only along the floor so some nail polish glowed, and apparently one chaperoning mom's white blouse was startling white...as she went around the edges moving chairs and such.

A good time was had by all, and I saved money!

(It seems that the student council is almost all guys, and they did not consider shopping time...if next year has a dress theme, I am sure they will be warned ahead of time to give the girls time!)